Tag: Justice

Iqbal was one of the people we looked at during our theme on justice and standing up for what is right.

Iqbal was taken to work in a factory from the age of 4 as he had been used as security against a loan taken out by his parents. Several years later, he attended a Builder’s Union meeting and discovered that for the past few years, he had been kept working illegally but due to a corrupt government and police force the law had never been enforced. He spoke to the crowd and they rallied to get him and his fellow slaves free.

Iqbal then traveled the country and the world, speaking out against child slavery and it is estimated that over 3000 children escaped after hearing his story. He also traveled abroad to tell his story and wanted to become a lawyer to fight for all bonded children to be free.

At the young age of 13 he was shot dead.

We read his story in the book Iqbal: A Brave Boy from Pakistan it is suitable for under 9 year olds. For older children or for a more in depth background, this graphic explores his life in more detail.

Some of the questions I offered were…

Is there anything unfair in the story?
Is it right for people to own children?
Should children be forced to work if they can earn money to help their family?
What kind of jobs do you think people would use children for?

We discussed that children could be used to go into small places, or for delicate work such as in the carpet factory or stitching small things. Also that it was not very long ago that it became illegal for children to do dangerous work in the UK and that even their great grandparents may have started working rather than go to secondary school. We rounded up with the realisation that in many places in the world, children are still being forced to work rather than be able to play or to go to school.

Activity

We did paper weaving for the craft activity in this session. We did simple weaving but for older children or adults it is easy to adapt to more complex designs using larger pieces of paper and/or thinner strips.

There is a good tutorial for simple paper weaving here and here is some inspiration for more advanced designs.

This is a double book telling the story of Malala and Iqbal, two children who were injured whilst standing up against injustice.

Malala, is reasonably well known but the story of Iqbal is less familiar.

Iqbal was taken to work in a factory from the age of 4 as he had been used as security against a loan taken out by his parents. Several years later, he attended a Builder’s Union meeting and discovered that for the past few years, he had been kept working illegally but due to a corrupt government and police force the law had never been enforced. He spoke to the crowd and they rallied to get him and his fellow slaves free.

Iqbal then traveled the country and the world, speaking out against child slavery and it is estimated that over 3000 children escaped after hearing his story. He also traveled abroad to tell his story and wanted to become a lawyer to fight for all bonded children to be free.

At the young age of 13 he was shot dead.

For those unfamiliar with Malala’s tale, she and some other girls, continued her education in the face of great obstacles, including being shot in the head. The world, inspired by her story pulled together to transport her to the UK where she survives and now travels the globe, telling her story and raising support for girls who do not get an education. She is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.

We did two sessions on this book, both exploring the theme of standing up for justice.

Written by the grandson of Mahatma Ghandi, Grandfather Ghandi is a story of a very personal moment in a very public life. Arun and his family have left their fairly typical life to live in his grandfather’s village. Arun is happy and excited to be living with his grandfather but he does not fit in very well as the way of life is not what he is used to.

One day he loses his temper at another child and feels he has let down his family name. “How could he, a Ghandi, be so easy to anger?” His grandfather explained in a beautiful manner that everyone, even he, feels anger but it is how you channel the anger that matters.

We really liked this book, the illustrations are evocative of a hot and dusty environment and the story was easy for the children to relate to. It assumes some prior knowledge of Mahatma Ghandi, which I didn’t cover. This would have helped with the children’s understanding of the situation at the start of the book and the reverence that he was held in, but the story itself is of the relationship between a grandson and grandfather and this came across well with the children.

We had a conversation about why people get angry and what happens when they do. Also about how to channel the energy of anger in useful ways rather than destructive ones.

The children were then invited to draw pictures depicting how it feels to be angry, here are some of the images created.

There are many many Martin Luther King Jr. resources around. I wanted something that could spark conversation so decided on this from Teachers Pay Teachers.

There are various statements and the children have to decide if they are just or unjust. They range from the reasonably straight forward “Teachers choose the kids with nice clothes to be student of the week” to the more complex, “Parents make decisions for their kids”. It has some American vocabulary but I plan on reading the statements aloud so will translate on the go. You could miss out or rewrite the relevant cards.

For an older group of children this could be a pair work or small group activity. It might be interesting to see how their choices compare and would be a good discussion point for the wider group.

After dividing the statements, the children have the opportunity to come up with their own just and unjust statements.

This session worked well with our 4-6 year old group. There was some more time at the end of the session so the children drew pictures of things they would like to change in the world.